A Maverick Choice<\/a> [Victor Davis Hanson]<\/p>\nThe wisdom or error in selecting Palin will be determined later, when the public gets to know her, hears her speak and debate, and the mad-dog, in-the-tank press goes after every detail in her bio. She will have a very thin margin of error as far as gaffes go, in as much as the Quayle syndrome will be quickly invoked at the slightest slip. <\/p>\n
But in political terms today, right now, one can appreciate the political brilliance of her appointment, which \u2014 given Obama’s doctrinaire liberal laundry-list speech \u2014 turns the attention to the McCain camp and will hinder the Democratic convention bounce.<\/p>\n
1. The pick appeals to the Hillary independent voter and forces Obama to go easy, since he doesn’t want both a primary and general election in which liberal women thought he and his MSNBC media henchmen took the sexist, mean-spirited low road. Given McCain’s 72 years, women will realize that the role and future of this VP is no token appointment.<\/p>\n
2. Conservatives and the base will be OK with both her positions and her life narrative; no defections as threatened with a Lieberman pick.<\/p>\n
3.On energy, she will either blunt McCain’s unreasonable opposition to ANWR, or, in fact \u2014 as an Alaskan pro-driller \u2014 give him the opening necessary to “evolve” on the issue into a support for drilling there.<\/p>\n
4. In a Zen way it raises the inexperience issue, inviting Obama to critique a fresh VP as “inexperienced” and thereby automatically turn the same scrutiny to his as-thin-or-even-thinner resume for the more important job.<\/p>\n
5. McCain can keep running those Biden-attacking-Obama ads, with little worry that he would get the same back had he nominated a primary rival with a Biden-like campaign trail.<\/p>\n
6. One governor, even with brief executive experience, still contrasts with three Senate legislators in the race.<\/p>\n
7. Obama’s “change” mantra and sermons on Washington insiders are suddenly null and void due to both VP picks: McCain went for an outsider, Obama went for the classical Uber-insider.<\/p>\n
8. As any one who has met her can attest, Palin has a charismatic presence and winning personality that could help whittle away at Obamania.<\/p>\n
9. Much of the arsenal of the left-twing critique of the last eight hate-Bush years is starting to evaporate. Both McCain and Palin have or will have sons in Iraq; both are not easily identified as hard-core insensitive Republicans; McCain’s eroding maverick status is rejuvenated with this running-mate pick.<\/p>\n
10. Let us hope that energy now becomes the key issue. Given Obama’s sorta sorta not references to gas, nuclear, and coal \u2014 and not much about drilling, McCain-Palin can really hit hard on natural gas, oil, nuclear, and coal as the perfect U.S.-dominated, at-home transition to alternative fuels that save the treasury and our national security \u2014 all much more appealing than Obama’s quixotic windmill and solar-panel melodramas.<\/p>\n
For today, the timing and choice were inspired; now we await how Gov. Palin fares when the “new,” “transcendent” \u2014 and vicious \u2014 leftwing political attacks come.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She’s attractive to conservatives for her apparent views on ANWR, second amendment rights, abortion and pork. She’s attractive to feminists and supporters of HRC because she’s...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
She’s attractive to conservatives for her apparent views on ANWR, second amendment rights, abortion and pork. She’s attractive to feminists and supporters of HRC because she’s a woman. <\/p>\n